Determination of parathion metabolite, p-nitrophenol in urine of parathion factory workers

Abstract

Parathion is an organophosphate pesticide being legally applied for the purpose of agriculture and is being manufactured in Korea. A gas chromatography/mass spectrometric method was developed for the determination of parathion urinary metabolite, p-nitrophenol. p-Nitrophenol was extracted from weak acidic urine, and then measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (selected ion monitoring). The recovery of p-nitrophenol in the overall procedure was 88.2%. The detection limit of the assay was 1.0 μg/L based upon assayed urine of 2.0 mL. The method was applied to the determination of p-nitrophenol in urine of workers of a parathion industry. Spot urines of workers of a parathion industry were sampled at the end of shift and p-nitrophenol was analyzed using above developed method. p-Nitrophenol could be detected in all of the urine samples at concentrations varying from 3.0 to 681 μg/L.